Knox Farm Fiber Festival 2009

Their Etsy site is HERE. Please visit them for some really nice items.
" SAVE THE DATE: Knox Farm Fiber Festival : 5th Year!

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 26, 2009

10 am to 5 pm

Admission $4 over age 8

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KNOX FARM STATE PARK

437 Buffalo Road East Aurora 14052

Park Telephone--655-7203






FESTIVAL ACTIVITIES: SPEND THE DAY WITH US


There will be demonstrations of:

Silk worms at work-making silken threads

Ornamental ironwork by a blacksmith

Antique sock knitting machines

Rug hooking-and a display of rugs


Tour the Park on the hay wagon.


Watch members of the Weavers Guild
of Buffalo, card, spin and weave a scarf from the fleece of the Park sheep Rita.

Buy a raffle ticket and if you win, the scarf is yours.
Tickets are $1 and are available at the festival.


Make & Take Children's crafts.


Meet the animals of Knox Farm: sheep, llama and goats; alpacas, angora goats and a miniature horse.


Angora goat shearing; Benny, Ma and Auntie Em


Watch demonstrations of spinning, use of the drop spindle, the great wheel and the flyer wheel.


The Knitting Guild of Greater Buffalo presents:

Basic knit and purl instruction for beginners.
Knitting Rx: bring your problem project and get
help from the experts.

Purchase pumpkins and gourds from the Park's garden;
Proceeds to benefit the animals.


Have lunch with us: Lunch vendors TBA "
Here is a bio from their website:

KnoxFarmFiber is the producer of hand-spun yarn made from the fleece of animals who live at Knox Farm State Park in East Aurora, New York. The yarn and other items, such as hats and scaves knitted from the yarn, plus Beginners Knitting Kits plus plain and dyed roving are for sale at the Gift Shop.
YOU CAN PURCHASE OUR YARN ONLINE AT www.knoxfarmfiber.etsy.com.
Sheep, llamas and goats are the fiber animals who live at Knox Farm State Park. Their fleece can be used to make a variety of yarns. The sheep are sheared once a year in the Spring. The llamas and goats are sheared more often. The fleece is washed, carded, handspun and then left its natural creamy color or dyed in an environmentaly sensitive process. All of the work is done by volunteers and by hand, much of it at the Park. Look for drying fleece set out in the sun on screens in the late Spring In the Fall you may find pots of dye-stuff simmering in a solar box.
We hope you like our yarn. If you have never worked with handspun before, you are in for a surprise. Handspun yarn differs from sheep-to-sheep and from spinner-to-spinner. Some of the fiber is left as its natural creamy color, and some is dyed. Some yarns are uneven. Some will be soft, others more coarse. You may even find bits of straw still in the yarn.
We wind our yarns into one or two ounce skeins or 28-30 yards per ounce. Most of the yarn is two-ply bulky weight and can be knit at a gauge of 3 stitches to 3.5 stitches to the inch.
You will find that no two skeins are the same
Please handwash our yarns gently in cool water. If you insist on soap, use a mild shampoo. Dry flat. Wind the skeins into loose balls before knitting and keep a large gauge so that the yarn will not be choked.
NOTE: Do not use our wool or yarn for felting projects. Our wool will not felt by hand, but SOME may felt with repeated agitation and hot water in a washing machine. Jill Sessa of Looped Back has great success with a front-loading machine.
We want you to be happy with our yarns! Please tell us what you think. E-mail Judith Bunn at jbunn_2000@yahoo.com or call me at 716 480 0086.
I found this lovely artisan through the Buffalo Indie Show Site.

Mary Jane's Attic (An Article on Etsy's Storque)

See MARY JANES ATTIC Here on etsy.
Today, I found an inspiring article on etsy about a couple who "quit their day jobs" as the title indicates, and began a brick and mortar shop after great success on etsy. It really does help to have a team member/s to help with some of your work load too.
Here are some excerpts from the article which you can find HERE.
"What are the most effective ways you have promoted and marketed your Etsy business? What's you're best marketing tip?
I think some of the best ways to promote our Etsy store was to start a customer newsletter, start a blog (or two or three!), submit your products for review by other popular blogs and magazines, participate in Etsy Street Teams (we belong to the SF Etsy Team, Etsy FAST and The Needlefelters Team) and vend at local craft fairs. It is the combination of all these things that make up our promotional strategy, and we believe it gives us a chance to get higher visibility among a wide variety of customers.

Our best marketing tip? Encourage feedback and word of mouth! We believe each of our customers is valuable and we tell them that each time they purchase from us. We acknowledge the value of their opinions and ask that they continue to keep us and other handmade artists in mind when shopping for products. We believe when your friend tells you about that “cool indie shop around the corner,” it’s worth loads more than any newspaper ad could communicate. A customer’s satisfaction is important, so always see that as your #1 marketing strategy.

What have you found to be unsuccessful promotion or something that's just not working for your shop?
We have found that print coupons and ads don’t always come back to us. We attached discount codes and vary rarely did they get used. We also found that doing regular sales in the Etsy shop were not very effective. Instead we price our items at what we believe to be fair price points and stick to them. Our customers have been loyal to us because of our affordability and consistency, not because of any fly by night sales.

If you could go back in time before you took the plunge, what advice would you give yourself knowing what you know now?
Prepare your press materials sooner. Make more efforts to promote your products and your business on a regular basis. Systematically collect and record customer suggestions and comments about products. Inventory! Inventory! Inventory! If you don’t know what sold and how many, you’ll never know exactly what the moneymakers are.

What advice would you give someone else thinking about taking the plunge to sell full time on Etsy?
Take it slowly, in stages. Don’t give up. You will make mistakes. We all make mistakes, and the best we can do is grow from them. Surround yourself (online and in person) with friends and colleagues who support what you do and share common goals. It’s important to have a support system. We would never have gotten this far if we did not have the support from lots of fellow crafters and business people.

SEE ALL OF THE QUIT YOUR DAY JOB STORQUE ARTICLES HERE